Chapter the Second of Part the Fifth
In which the narrative recounts acts from the life of Kyle Pen Marsanga in Wearmont, Mastruum.
The girl in front of Kyle in the food line at breakfast turned her back on Kyle so pointedly that Kyle did not dare wish her a contented morning. Franco picked up the dishes Kyle wanted and something for himself, then followed Kyle to the tables. The dark looks Kyle received from everybody discouraged him from sitting at the same table as anybody else and so he settled on an empty table. As he expected, nobody else sat down there, not even sat at the other end.
“You’ve really done it now,” said Franco as Kyle picked at his food.
“I guess I have,” said Kyle.
“Your aunt was pretty sure you’d be good, but I bet she never thought you’d be this good,” said Franco.
“She never heard me sing unless she sneaked up on my when I was cleaning a room,” Kyle replied.
“I knew I should have written my mother and told her you were so good it was dangerous,” said Franco, “but she didn’t want me to write home unless it was an emergency and it didn’t look like an emergency until yesterday afternoon. Now it’s too late. She’s good at planning things until something goes wrong, which it has. She can’t help us now.”
The ostentatious shunning of Kyle at the breakfast table could hardly be a greater contrast to the reception Kyle received the night before last when he was treated as the greatest musical hero of the Universal Music Institute of Wearmont. For several days leading up to that concert, Constance Pen Dearing’s sketch of Kyle was posted throughout the Institute and all over town. Now every poster was gone. Kyle let his mind drift back to the concert, wondering if it was a dream.
The choir sang many of Kyle’s favorite works, including Song of the Near Sky by Herbert Pen Testament. With the choir singing perfectly together, Kyle himself felt so much one with all of the boys that he almost forgot how alienated he was from them at all other times. It was enough to make Kyle wonder how the boys could turn against him so quickly after singing with him and, for that matter, turn against each other as much as they did. When the time came for Kyle to sing his solos, Magister Marlow Pen Vango turned to the audience.
“Dear Inheritors,” Magister Marlow Pen Vango announced, “the institute has a double musical souffle to offer you this evening. We are proud to present the first-ever performance of a new set of three songs by one of the greatest graduates of the Institute, Terro Pen Mursong. This set of songs will be sung by one of the greatest young voices to be heard in this venerable concert room. For many generations, the name of Pen Marsanga has raised the highest expectations of vocal talent in all of Mastruum. After years of silence, during which doubters suggested that the Pen Marsanga talent had failed, the voice cultivated in the bosom of that great family has blossomed here at the Universal Music Institute of Wearmont. I shall now step aside and join you in listening to the dulcet tones of Kyle Pen Marsanga.”
Magister Marlow Pen Vango’s fulsome praise of Kyle’s singing was startling to Kyle as those were the first good words Kyle had heard the choir director say about his singing. Whenever the choirmaster listened to Kyle practice the songs, he afflicted the boy with a torrent of abuse for each note that threatened to slip off its pitch or each ornament that lacked the proper grace. Right up to that introduction by Magister Marlow Pen Vango, Kyle had suspected that he was being set up for an embarrassing failure for the purpose of disgracing Franco’s family. Only Deanna’s more positive remarks carefully made out of earshot of Magister Pen Vango gave Kyle some hope that he might acquit himself in front of the highly demanding audience. Even then, Deanna confused Kyle by warning him not to come near her at any time outside of their rehearsals. The only other thing that gave Kyle the strength to face the audience that night was the encouragement he received from other boys in Merithwell when he sang with them to create more singing stones for the tower.
Just as Deanna played the introduction to the first song about a floating island where trees drip with the sweetest of fruits, Kyle noticed that there was much more room to the side of the stage than there was supposed to be and in that space two double pairs of ear rings caught some light and then other familiar faces became barely visible. His friends from Merithwell had come to listen to him as they promised they would. Determined not to let his friends down, Kyle began the first song with the light touch that he had only dreamed about before that night. The second song was about a floating island where trees fanned out and caught the wind when it blew so that the island flew just above the water before landing with a playful splash. Kyle could hardly help thinking of the song that Luke and Brendan had taught him about the Western Wind as he sang of the wind carrying the island in its embrace. The final song was the longest and most demanding. This floating island was filled with lovers who searched for their loved ones, constantly saw them from afar, but never managed to catch up with them. Kyle thought of Deanna who was so close to him as she played the hammerharp and yet was so far.
The concert room was silent for some time and then a deafening applause thundered into Kyle’s ears. He bowed awkwardly and stepped back. The applause continued and Magister Pen Vango solemnly motioned Kyle to acknowledge the applause a second time and so he did. When the applause showed no sign of letting up, Magister Marlow Pen Vango stepped in with his hands held high.
“Our master soloist will now sing Salon Pen Darrus’ Meditation Piece Number Five.”
Another burst of applause greeted the announcement and then the audience became silent with expectation. Kyle’s knees almost turned to water. This was the first Kyle had been told that he might sing the meditation piece that night, although he had sung it a few times in meditation hall. Once again, he suspected he was being set up for a failure, but Kyle was not in the mood for failing. Deanna played a ripple on the hammerharp to give Kyle his pitch, not that he needed it from her for this unaccompanied solo. Kyle took a deep breath and the first long note flowed out of him. In a moment of magic, Kyle rode the music more than he sang it so that he almost felt that somebody else was doing the singing. The wordless song floated down and up and down and up again until the last note faded into nothingness.
After the concert, Kyle was mobbed by members of the audience and by many teachers of the Institute. Lydia Pen Mansard spoke many kind words to her harp student. Over-Magister Oliver Pen Ward, a heavy-set man with a broom of a mustache, whom Kyle had only seen from a distance up to that time, went up to the boy, shook his head warmly and announced that Kyle was the greatest boy soprano in the history of the Institute.
The morning after the concert, one morning ago, copies of the Music Press were all over the Institute with Constance Pen Dearing’s sketch of Kyle Pen Marsanga topping the front page. Far from sitting at an empty table, Kyle and Franco were surrounded by students and faculty praising Kyle’s singing to the skies. The only ominous sign was the total absence of any comments from any of the other boys in the choir. Deanna Pen Lear herself kept her distance and confined her company to the other choir boys. As the day wore on, Kyle had the feeling that people were talking about him with great animation in a not-very-friendly way.
When Kyle entered the choir rehearsal room that afternoon, the day after the concert, he was not prepared for the stony faces he received from the other boys. Not only did they not greet him, they did not even make their usual slicing remarks about his solos. When Franco handed him his drink, Kyle was left to sip the liquid in silence. Every step Kyle took, in whatever direction, led the boys to take a step in the same direction, away from him. Deanna also studiously avoided looking in Kyle’s direction and she moved away from him at the same pace as the other boys. When Magister Marlow Pen Vango entered the room, he did not give Kyle his usual scowl; he gave him a look of frozen fury. Before beginning the warm up exercises, Magister Pen Vango discussed the concert at some length, giving not the slightest indication that either the choir or Kyle’s solo singing had impressed anybody. He read off a long list of imperfections that marred the performances of the choir and then went on to pick out one fault after another, at great length, in Kyle’s solos. After that speech, even the music that Kyle usually liked felt insipid. He hoped that Deanna would say something gracious to him after the rehearsal, as she often did, but she went straight to Burton Pen Parsley and walked off with him, laughing at his every turn of phrase. But when Kyle reached his room, he found a note under his door. Opening it up, he read the message: “Your voice is as true as your heart. D.”
That note did not console Kyle during his restless night and it consoled him even less as he sat at the empty breakfast table. Then, while Kyle was thinking of stabbing a piece of food with his two-pronged fork, a large black wad of paper in the middle of Kyle’s plate. A group of boys from another table cheered the accuracy of the throw.
“I guess they don’t like me,” said Kyle, “as if I didn’t know.”
“You’ve been blackballed,” said Franco.
“Does that mean they won’t talk to me again?” Kyle asked, “as if they were speaking to me before?”
“It means that you have no chance at having a social life at this institute and no chance for a social life anywhere else, either.”
“What can they do to me that they haven’t done already?” asked Kyle.
“I don’t know,” Franco replied, “but if they think of something, they’ll do it.”
To make everything worse, Deanna Pen Lear was thick with the boys who had just tossed the black paper wad, laughing as if she thought they were the funniest people in all Mastruum. When Kyle saw Deanna herself make a ball out of a piece of paper, he looked away. When the wad hit him square on the head, Kyle stood up to walk out of the dining hall in disgust.
“Don’t go quite yet,” Franco whispered with his mouth as closed as possible. “Act like you don’t care. Take a couple bites of food if you can. Then go.”
Hard as it was for Kyle to follow that advice, he did it, knowing that Franco knew more about handling social situations with inheritors than he did. Meanwhile, Franco picked up the wad, unfolded it, and put it on Kyle’s tray. Kyle didn’t want to read the note, but he read it anyway. It read:
Go to my room immediately. Do not knock. Just go in. NOW. I promise I will do nothing improper with you. I am helping you. THIS IS URGENT. D.
“What do you think?” Kyle asked Franco.
“Looks like a setup. All she has to do is bring a bunch of servants to her room and you’re cooked.”
“That’s what I think. Let’s go.”
“THAT KID IS REALLY GOING TO GET IT IF HE DOESN’T GET A MOVE ON IT!” Deanna yelled from her table, then laughed her head off with the boys who thought she was funny.
Kyle grimaced, left Franco to bus his dishes and walked up to his room. There, he found another note slid under his door, again in Deanna’s hand. It read:
If you are reading this note you are in deep trouble because you did not trust me. I said your voice is as true as your heart and I meant it. GO TO MY ROOM IMMEDIATELY AND I WILL HELP YOU. I hope it is not too late. D.
Kyle wondered what the trouble could be that was so urgent. When Franco came to his room, he showed it to him.
“She means business,” said Franco. “Girls don’t send notes like this just for the fun of it.”
“Should we go to her room and hope we don’t get kicked out for indecent activities?” asked Kyle.
“I think we’d better.”
But before the boys could do anything, there was a loud knock on the door. Kyle crumpled up the note and threw it into his satchel before he opened the door. Three disinherited servants of the school stood outside.
“How have you come to serve me?” Kyle asked, although he doubted that he wanted to be served by those men at that time.
“Are you Kyle Pen Marsanga?”
“Yes.”
“We have been asked to escort you and your attendant to the Over-Magister’s office.”
“Then I guess we are coming,” said Kyle weakly.
Kyle and Franco followed the disinherited servants through the long hallways and down the stairs until they reached the office of Over-Magister Oliver Pen Ward. The big man was seated at his massive desk with neat stacks of paper piled high. This afternoon, he did not appear to be in the mood for congratulating Kyle on his great singing. Seated next to the Over-Magister was Magister Marlow Pen Vango, his eyes filled with the same frozen fury he had shown at the rehearsal the previous day. Three peacekeeping officers were positioned about the office. Kyle feared the worst.
“I will, for the moment, continue to call you Kyle Pen Marsanga, the name under which you are registered,” said Over Magister Oliver Pen Ward. “However, it has been called to my attention that the illustrious Pen Marsanga family does not have an inherited son of the name of Kyle. In addition to that, the research that has come to my attention also informs me that there is no disinherited son in the Pen Marsanga family of the name of Kyle, either. Furthermore, this research states that the three known disinherited sons of the Pen Marsanga family are currently serving in the main family household. Still furthermore, the research that has been called to my attention states that the name of the youngest inheriting son of the Pen Marsanga family is Franco Pen Marsanga. Even still furthermore, the research that has come to my attention states that there is a disinherited son of the Pen Terraga family of the name of Kyle and that Kyle Pen Terraga was traded to the Pen Marsanga family. The conclusion of this research is that a disinherited child has been fraudulently enrolled in this venerable Institute of Music. My question is: can you truthfully deny the results of this research?”
Kyle’s throat had tightened so much that he could not have spoken even if he had any idea of what he could say.
“Everything you have just said is true,” said Franco, his voice expressionless.
“Is that to say that it is true that Kyle Pen Terraga has had the temerity to take your rightful place as a student at the Universal Music Institute of Wearmont?”
“It is true to say just that,” said Franco.
“But he ordered me—“ Kyle tried to protest.
“You must know that it is not the place of a disinherited child to speak to an accusation made against him,” Over Magister Oliver Pen Ward interrupted him.
“It is just as we feared,” said Magister Marlow Pen Vango. “The fact that a disinherited child has sung prominent solos here in this institute is the greatest threat to the social order that Mastruum has faced in many seasons. Leniency cannot be considered in your cases.”
“That is my opinion as well,” said Over-Magister Oliver Pen Ward.
Kyle looked over at Franco in the hope that he would defend him, at least to the extent of admitting that he had ordered Kyle to make the switch, but Franco showed no inclination to say anything on his behalf.
“Do you surrender Kyle Pen Terraga to the Inquisition?” asked one of the peacekeepers.
“Yes, I do so surrender Kyle Pen Terraga,” answered the Over-Magister.
Proceed to Chapter the Third of Part the Fifth